


just a kiss (on your lips)

by blackhawkdown



Category: Mind Blind - Jo O'Connor
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, finally requited love, sometimes you just have to hit someone over the head with their own feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28602522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackhawkdown/pseuds/blackhawkdown
Summary: "What's it going to take, Gray?"ORShe's waited long enough. Either he sees her as a woman now, or he never will. What's it gonna be?
Relationships: Button/Grayson "Gray" Black, Female Button/Grayson "Gray" Black
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	just a kiss (on your lips)

**Author's Note:**

> Mind Blind is just one of the IF WIPs I've been getting into lately, but playing Grayson's route left this little nugget in my head and it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it! Whatever Jo comes up with for their first kiss will probably be better, but I couldn't help myself. Hope you enjoy!

“What’s it going to take, Gray?”

The silence that suddenly descended over the kitchen could almost have been described as oppressive—a weighted blanket of nothingness, were Regan particularly given to flowery turns of phrase. Or, to coin a phrase she would be more likely to actually _use_ —you could have heard a _pun_ drop.

Get it? Because- because _pun_ instead of _pin_ and-

Whatever. The point was—it had gone very, _very_ quiet. So quiet that, were it not for the fact that Gray had been in the middle of putting a plate in the dishwasher, Regan might have thought he hadn’t heard her. But he’d frozen, and in the process gone almost comically still—she would have laughed, and in fact _wanted_ to, but for the first time in her life she was sick of not being taken seriously, and she wasn’t going to jeopardize that.

Still, it was pretty damn funny that he was standing there, so immobile that she half expected a pigeon to swoop down and crap on his head, plate in one hand, the other braced against the counter.

His shoulders looked as sexy as ever. Broad, and tense, and not for the first time Regan wanted to just throw caution to the wind and _touch_ them. Give him a goddamn back massage—lord knew he looked like he needed one. Especially after everything that had happened with the bomb, and Nick _finally_ getting back into his own body, but barely able to pee by himself (his body had been in a coma for long enough that the doctors suspected he’d need at least a week to regain full functionality; they were just thankful that his muscles hadn’t yet started to atrophy), which was why Gray was here in the first place.

But he’d been distant. Frustratingly so. Whatever small allowances he’d been making while Regan was technically a Pollard 5—hugs, reassuring touches, a near-kiss that she still felt all the way down to her _toes_ , except Nick had started Very Vocally Gagging at exactly the wrong moment ( _I do not want to know what my best friend’s mouth feels like, Button, **please**._) and Regan’s wince had apparently knocked sense back into him, because he’d backpedaled and run out of the room so fast he’d have made any Indy 500 driver jealous—things had gone back to even-worse-than-normal since she’d gone back to being a Zero just the other day.

Had that really only been two days ago? Christ. Forget mind blind, Regan was starting to feel _time_ blind.

And she was sick of it. Sick of waiting. Sick of the guilt that flashed across Gray’s face every time she thought they were finally _getting_ somewhere. Did he really still see her as some punk sixteen-year-old, too confident for her own good and much too young? Was she only ever gonna be ‘my best friend’s baby sister’? Hadn’t she earned _more_ by now?

Or had she really just been imagining those lingering glances, longing looks, recent hugs that lasted just a touch too long to be platonic?

Had she been buying into her own overconfident bullshit? Was _that_ the problem, here?

It felt like an eternity later, though in reality it was more like a few seconds, when Gray finally set the plate down in the dishwasher and straightened, though he didn’t turn to look at her. “What is _what_ going to take?” he asked, accent clipped—was she imagining the strain in his voice?

Christ. He couldn’t even _look_ at her. Which was going to make her plan somewhat more difficult to pull off, since it required visual contact. “Grayson Black!” she snapped—and whether it was the usage of his full name, or the surprisingly sharp tone in her voice, it worked, and Gray spun around, eyes wide as he took in her clenched fists, narrowed eyes, and the fact that she was standing there in a button-down shirt that nearly reached her knees (did he even recognize it as the shirt she’d stolen from him a few days after he’d rejected her bold teenage advances?) and, judging by the pale skin of her calves beneath it, nothing else.

Was he thinking about her wearing his shirt for a nightgown for the past four years? Did he care that sometimes she imagined it still smelled like him?

Had she just revealed herself to be one of those unhinged stalkers that wound up on 60 Minutes?

“What?” Gray repeated, weakly—swallowing hard, judging from the vigorous bob of his Adam’s apple. His eyes were resolutely trained on her face, but she thought she caught him glancing down—or perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

Was it supposed to be this _hard_?

But Regan had already settled on a course of action, and damn it all if she wasn’t going to see it through. Her plans didn’t always work, but she _did_ always make the attempt, and she deserved every accolade for brilliance and performance under pressure that she’d earned over the years. This was just another test. Perhaps the most important one.

And if she failed it again, well… then it was his fucking loss, and that was _that_.

“What’s it going to take for you to _see_ me, Gray?” And here was the tricky part.

Her hands went to the buttons at her collar, and she slowly started undoing them. She didn’t miss the way Gray’s eyes flared—even from here, she could tell from how dark they looked that his pupils were blown, and wasn’t that supposed to mean something?—as he tracked the movement. One after another, she separated buttons from fabric, revealing more and more of her collarbone—and then her chest. And then- “What’s it going to take for you to see me as anything other than a little girl? Nick’s baby sister?”

When Gray moved, it almost looked involuntary. The motions were jerky and uncoordinated, as if he were fighting himself every step of the way—a battle he lost, as he stood right in front of her, staring down, an expression on his face Regan couldn’t begin to understand. It was times like these when she was very, very aware of the fact that he had a full foot on her.

 _I’d like to climb that man like a tree_ , she’d told Sally once, and the two of them had collapsed into fits of giggles imagining an attempt to do _exactly_ that. It wasn’t as if Sally would have any easier a time with Nick, but Gray was even taller. And now, staring up at him, Regan’s breath caught in her throat—her fingers stalled on a button right between her breasts. She could feel her own heartbeat thudding wildly against her ribs.

Whatever he was fighting against saying came out in a rush, a harsh whisper she could barely make out except she was listening like her life depended on it.

“You think I don’t see you, Rae?”

His jaw was clenched so tightly she was almost too worried about his teeth potentially shattering to feel that flood of warmth that always accompanied Gray calling her that. No one else felt the need to shorten ‘Regan’, (particularly since Nick and her father much preferred Button, to her eternal chagrin), but Gray had, almost from the moment they met.

It was the one thing that hadn’t changed when he shut her down four years ago. He still called her Rae, and never told her why. She liked to imagine various scenarios leading to the nickname, each one more improbable than the last—and, at this point, the truth would doubtless be anticlimactic. But something about the way he said it this time—the way his throat worked as he forced the words out, the tic in his jaw, the way she was pretty sure she could _see_ his pulse spiking beneath the tight T-shirt he wore—made her knees weak and her toes curl.

Gray took advantage of Regan’s sudden inability to speak and stepped even closer—so close they were almost touching. So close she could only imagine the thoughts he must have been reading now, although it may not have been much, considering the way she had currently blue-screened and was having trouble breathing.

“I see you. God help me, I always have.”

Somehow, all of Regan’s planning, all of her confidence, all of her determination… it crumbled beneath the intensity of his dark blue gaze. She swallowed—once, and then again, willing herself to speak. Willing _something_ to come out of her mouth that wasn’t obscene, because now may have been the time, but she was suddenly woefully unprepared for Gray to call the fucking game.

But she just couldn’t resist one last- “Then _prove_ it.”

And then his mouth was on hers, and she couldn’t even have told you which of them moved first—mostly because she had lost all capability for rational thought.

His mouth.

Gray.

 _Grayson’s mouth_. It was touching _her_ mouth. They were _kissing_. All her wildest fantasies (and in four years, she’d managed to build up quite the impressive collection) weren’t enough to prepare her for what kissing Grayson Black actually felt like.

It felt like _fire_. Terribly cliché, and yet true. It was a burn she felt right to her bones, stoked by the soft little groan that left his throat as her head tilted just so to give him access. More than that, it felt _right_. As if the last wire of a circuit had finally been set in place, and electricity hummed in her veins at the contact.

It took a second for Regan to realize those soft little sighs and starts were actually _words_. Gray was speaking against her lips, as if desperate to get the words out but unwilling to break contact to do so. “ _Beautiful. So beautiful. Finally. It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Why did I wait so goddamn long?_ ”

She pulled back, just enough to catch her breath, though Gray’s little whimper at the sudden loss of sensation sent a spike of heat through the pit of her stomach. Her arms stayed around his neck—she wasn’t even sure when they’d gotten there in the first place, except she must have been moving while they were kissing without thinking about it—and he rested his forehead against hers, a rueful smile curving his mouth.

Regan wanted to kiss him again, but she also couldn’t help the question that burst from her lips. “What was that? Not-” oh hell, if her cheeks got any hotter she was pretty sure she’d spontaneously combust, “not the kiss, I mean the… the talking. The talking?”

Gray looked… almost embarrassed, she realized a second later. Bashful. But he met her eyes steadily, brushing a stray lock of damp blonde hair (seducing your brother’s best friend was apparently enough to make one damn sweaty, ok) from her forehead, tucking it behind one ear as he pulled back just enough to get a good look at her face. It was some small consolation that he looked at least as flushed as she felt. “I… I can hear everything, when you’re this close.” Even his _ears_ were red by now. “I thought… I mean, it’s only fair if you can… hear me too. Right?”

It took a moment to sink in, and then Regan’s mouth stretched into a grin so wide she thought her face might crack. Her _cheeks_ hurt, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “Gray… that is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He laughed softly, before dipping in for another kiss.

Just as their lips met again, a loud groan echoed through Regan’s head.

_Button, I swear—please don’t kill me—I wouldn’t interrupt, but… if you have sex with Grayson in this house, where I can hear you, I **will** die. Right here. I will expire on the spot._

Regan pulled back, biting her lip and shaking from suppressed laughter. “Uh. I think Nick woke up. I should check on him,” she managed after a moment, the confusion clearing from Gray’s expression as he chuckled.

“Right. I should… finish the dishes.” Reluctantly—for Regan’s part, at least, some irrational section of her brain absolutely positive that if she let go now, she’d wake up and find out that the last five minutes had been yet another dream—the pair pulled apart, and Gray moved back towards the sink. “Hey, Rae?”

She was moving towards the staircase, but stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Would you allow me to take you to dinner, tonight?”

A date? An actual _date_? With Grayson Black?!

Well, they’d just been making out like… ok, like a pair of horny teenagers. But they were both adults, so _surely_ dinner was the next logical step. Regan grinned.

“You’re on, Gray. Maybe I’ll even dress up first.” She winked, and headed back out of the room before he could ask what _exactly_ she meant by ‘maybe’.

It was best to keep a little _mystery_ in the relationship, right? Besides, she still liked making Gray _squirm_.


End file.
